What major domestic policies did Trump enact in 2025-2026 first year?
Executive summary
President Trump’s first year prioritized sweeping executive actions: he signed over 200 executive orders (217 in 2025) that concentrated on boosting domestic energy production, deregulation, immigration enforcement, and reshaping federal agencies—moves often mirrored by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda (EO count: 217) [1] [2]. Major named actions include Executive Order 14154 “Unleashing American Energy” directing agencies to rescind rules seen as burdensome to fossil fuel and nuclear development and EO 14260 targeting state laws that impede energy use [3].
1. Energy first: “Unleashing American Energy” and preemption of state rules
Trump’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order 14154 ordered agencies to develop plans “to suspend, revise, or rescind” agency actions deemed unduly burdensome to domestic energy development with explicit attention to oil, gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical minerals and nuclear energy — signaling a federal push to maximize fossil-fuel and nuclear production [3]. In April, EO 14260 instructed the attorney general to identify state laws that “burden the use of domestic energy resources” and take action against them, a federal-state preemption strategy that intensifies White House intervention in energy conflicts [3].
2. Deregulation at scale: hundreds of orders and a White House playbook
The Federal Register lists 217 executive orders by Trump in 2025, an exceptional volume that institutionalizes rapid policy change through the presidency rather than Congress [1]. Legal and policy trackers — including Holland & Knight and state-federal monitors — compiled charts and trackers showing many orders aimed at deregulation across agencies, reflecting a coordinated administration strategy to use executive tools to reshape rulemaking [4] [5].
3. Project 2025’s fingerprints: bureaucratic reordering and policy alignment
Multiple outlets and watchdogs report substantial overlap between Trump actions and Project 2025 recommendations. By the 100-day mark, analyses showed roughly 45% of Trump’s EOs closely mirrored Project 2025 proposals, particularly on boosting energy, tightening immigration enforcement, and rolling back regulations — though the administration and Project architects publicly contested the degree of direct influence [2] [6]. Independent trackers (Center for Progressive Reform) explicitly map Project 2025 proposals to actual executive actions, signaling an organized policy playbook being operationalized [7].
4. Law enforcement, civil rights, and criminal-justice changes
Reporting indicates the Justice Department under Trump froze some civil-rights enforcement actions and moved to roll back consent decrees with police departments; a National Law Enforcement Accountability Database created under the prior administration was deactivated [3]. These moves represent an administration tilt toward limiting federal civil-rights oversight of local policing and negotiating new enforcement priorities at DOJ [3].
5. Domestic legislative push: a “massive domestic policy bill” with contested trade‑offs
Trump did not rely solely on executive action: he aggressively courted House Republicans to back a sweeping domestic policy bill described as rolling back Biden-era environmental investments and reducing free or subsidized health care while increasing military spending and expanding tax breaks—producing forecasts that costs would exceed savings [8]. This underscores a mixed strategy of orders plus attempted statutory change to cement priorities.
6. Education, department reshaping and high‑profile dismantling efforts
Local reporting notes executive moves to begin dismantling or dramatically reshape the Department of Education — a high-visibility policy from Project 2025 that President Trump advanced via executive action in March 2025 [2]. The move reflects a broader intent to centralize or redirect federal agencies’ missions consistent with a unitary-executive approach advocated in Project 2025 [9] [6].
7. Environmental law rollbacks and regulatory durability aims
By late 2025 the administration moved to weaken major environmental statutes and regulations — including the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act protections — while the EPA leadership framed changes as “durable” rules designed to survive future administrations [10]. Those rollbacks align with the stated energy-first agenda and regulatory rollback strategy [3] [10].
Limitations and competing perspectives
Available sources document extensive executive action and alignment with Project 2025, but they disagree on causation and scope: some outlets and trackers directly connect many orders to Project 2025 recommendations [2] [7], while Project 2025’s own materials and some administration statements deny a direct one-to-one mapping [6] [11]. Sources do not provide a complete cataloged list of every policy outcome or the final legal status of each order; for many measures, “implementation” and court challenges continue beyond initial orders [1] [3]. Available sources do not mention the full set of enacted statutory (Congress-passed) laws tied to this period beyond the administration’s legislative pushes (not found in current reporting).
Bottom line: The first year of Trump’s 2025 term was dominated by a torrent of executive orders—217 recorded in 2025—targeting energy expansion, deregulation, agency restructuring, immigration and policing priorities, and environmental rollback. Analysts and advocacy groups see strong overlap with Project 2025’s blueprint, while the administration frames actions as restoring “American energy dominance” and regulatory stability [1] [3] [2] [10].